As the COVID-19 threat continues to take a heavy toll on the mental health of people worldwide, it may help if we did not make the situation worse for ourselves by tending to overthink what more trouble lies ahead due to the contagion.
Apart from adding to our depression and mental fatigue, overthinking would lead us nowhere, and only likely make an already bad state of affairs completely unbearable. By pulling us down to a level where we are unable to think or act rationally, the very attributes currently needed in abundance to face up to the conditions for what they are and take whatever measures that may be necessary to lessen our miseries.
At a time when everybody, in their own way, needs to play a part in the process of economic recovery, overthinking, moreover, could have the debilitating effect of affecting our efficiency and productivity at workplaces, thereby prolonging our agony further on the earnings front.
Just consider this.
Will it, for instance, serve any practical purpose spending endless amounts of time discussing why, even after more than four months since it declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) does not have clear answers on many issues pertaining to the infection?
Or is there any tangible gain that could accrue from being discontented and crying aloud about the lack of clarity on when an efficacious vaccine for COVID-19 would be available?
Personally, I feel, learning to live in the moment by embracing the new normal, taking each day as it comes, and trying to control the controllable (whatever little that might be) could be our best bets through which we may maintain our composure and well-being during this trying period. And be in a position to keep a clear head, even in these unnatural times, to do what needs to be done, without being burdened by the prospect of having to confront an additional challenge in the form of negative thoughts.
Admitted that this may seem easier said than done when only a handful among us may have been spared the trauma caused by the novel coronavirus, there really are few other options available to tide over this calamitous situation. Especially with the Corona challenge likely to persist for quite some time to come, and there being no possibility, at all, of any superhero suddenly springing up from seemingly nowhere to come to our aid in the fight against COVID-19, however, much, we would want it to be so.
Circumstances as those which exist presently demand that we not become weak and miserable by overthinking but instead try to have our own back and take a real shot at becoming masters of our own fate. Taking heart from what the professional wrestler John Cena, famous for his ‘never give up’ slogan, had once tweeted, and I quote, “Life can be a tough game, some days you may wake up feeling you’ve lost. Keep in mind, as long as you wake up, you’re still in the game”.